MY STORY BEHIND THE STORY
 “Ashes to Ashes: Puerto Rico’s Coal Combustion Problem”
Published in Metro magazine, San Juan, October 2009

By Huáscar Robles
IJJ Environmental Justice Fellow, 2009

On a hot August night, I drove into the humid mountains of Arroyo, a small town in the south of Puerto Rico. I traveled to interview folks who said that AES Corporation in nearby Guayama had dumped tons of coal ash near their neighborhoods.

After two hours driving down the slippery mountains, I reached the Arroyo Cultural Center, where a group of affable people greeted me.

The group had met to discuss ways to halt the dumping of ashes. It was their second meeting and they chose a moniker that suited their cause: Community of Arroyanos for the Environment (CAPA, for its Spanish acronym). Afterwards, the residents shared their stories. They all came from adjacent neighborhoods. Their narrative was similar. After work crews dug ditches, fully loaded AES trucks deposited ashes close to their backyards, sometimes near aquifers or parks. On other occasions, the ashes would pile up for days dusting off into the air and filtering into their homes. 
 
Listening to their stories, I understood more clearly the reality of environmental injustice: the burden of environmental dangers is spread unevenly across social classes. CAPA members were humble, low- to middle-income residents who insisted that they were victims of financial and political interests.

What I had set out to do was simple: hear the claims, obtain facts and incorporate the science. The purpose of my story was to build a framework for the study of environmental threats on these impoverished communities. The strategy was to investigate the dumping of coal ash and its potential dangers to residents and natural resources. I would examine Puerto Rico’s environmental health policy and the public agencies created to protect citizens from environmental contamination.

The task was hard to accomplish. I had been well into the investigation when my magazine, Metro San Juan, went into furlough. This meant all logistic expenses came out of my pocket. And not having a steady income was slowly draining my resources. Luckily, I was able to complete the project.

I began by demonstrating that these coastal communities were indeed the target of environmental injustice. I did so with the tools provided at IJJ seminars in Los Angeles. First, I cited Professor Manuel Pastor’s “In the Wake of the Storm” study as a base to explain what EJ is.

Then, I utilized the skills taught by Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza to map the demographics of regions. I used the websites from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census. Data on these sites enabled me to create a socioeconomic framework of these communities.

I visited the neighborhoods and interviewed residents. They claimed to have been victims of systematic environmental contamination over the years, not by AES Corporation alone but by an industrial sugar plant whose chemicals had purportedly leaked into the adjacent Jobos Bay and by a thermo electrical plant whose levels of CO2 had surpassed the federal limits for almost eight years.  

I also met with the community organizations and listened to their claims, always with sensitivity but with a healthy dose of journalistic skepticism.

When investigating AES Corp, I ran into some obstacles. The plant, according to EPA records, had never been fined or cited for polluting. The coal ash produced at the plant was considered beneficial because, after testing, it showed low levels of heavy metals and was used for construction projects. This is where my project momentarily stalled. Was this coal ash beneficial? Could these low levels of contaminants pose a real threat? The coal ash horror stories I had researched seemed completely different than mine. In Kingston, Tennessee, a coal-ash spill had created serious damage to private property and land. A report by the Environmental Integrity Group and Earthjustice had warned of high cancer risks for one in every 50 Americans living near 200 dump sites across the country. Here in the south of Puerto Rico, according to EPA standards, the coal ash seemed hardly a threat.

Thanks to the help of IJJ Senior Fellow Janet Wilson, I got in touch with Earthjustice’s lawyer Lisa Evans, who informed me that new research by the EPA’s Science Advisory Board and the National Research Council (NRC) stated that the test (TCLP) used to determine toxicity in coal ash was inefficient. I added this to my investigation and asked EPA and Department of Natural Resources’ representatives and they stated that indeed the test used in Puerto Rico was the TCLP. This meant that the levels of contaminants in the regions where AES dumped the ashes could be higher than expected.

Another obstacle I encountered was the lack of health assessment of the regions. Cancer research dated to 2004 and in spite of systematic environmental injustice, government agencies have not conducted a thorough health assessment of the area.  

It was my persistence that helped me gather all the facts to build the final story, in which I established that AES continuously dumped coal ash near these neighborhoods. I also presented EPA’s studies that suggest that the coal ash can’t be classified as beneficial until a better test other than the TCLP is developed and used by U.S. environmental agencies. Through investigative research, I also determined that AES might be in breach of their Power Purchase Agreement since they had been purportedly giving away the ashes, as opposed to selling it as determined in the contract.

The seminars and lectures at the IJJ fellowship conferences gave me the tools to achieve these goals. Before the fellowship, my knowledge of EJ and the agencies responsible for the environment was minimal. More importantly, by having visited L.A. and Chicago and having studied their environmental problems, I was able to understand the threats that the cities in my stories faced.

Fortunately, I was able to put into practice the multimedia skills I learned at the fellowship. I bought a Flip cam and recorded a few interviews and some of the sites where the ashes were dumped. They didn’t make it to my magazine’s website, since it eventually went into indefinite furlough. But I will utilize these skills in the near future for similar projects.

Without the IJJ’s fellowship, I would have never been able to conduct this project. Publications seldom give editorial space for these important subjects, and I believe my editor and staff understood better the importance of this subject once I was able to explain it to them with the knowledge and skills acquired during the fellowship.

It was truly an inspiration to share with other fellows their passion for environmental journalism. Environmental problems need to be addressed and I will certainly commit to continue writing and investigating these pressing issues in Puerto Rico. I am proud to be ready to tackle these developments as our island heads to make important decisions on energy issues.